The Loyalist Point of View:

Many people ask me why anyone would have been loyal to
the king. After all, he was a tyrant wasn't he? That
may be what we are taught now, but not everyone felt
that way at the time. Anyway, if I had lived back
then, I certainly can't be sure I'd wan't to replace a
perfectly stable and successful government with a
completely untested one. And many people who had been
in favor of the revolution weren't at all happy with
their new government once it was all over.

At the beginning of the American Revolution, separation
from Mother England wasn't all that popular an idea.
Only about one third of the population of the colonies
was in favor of war, one third was opposed to the
revolution and the remaining third was undecided.

The Loyalists were those people who didn't think their
situation was so bad and remained loyal to the king.
Almost all of the people living in the British colonies
looked upon themselves as British subjects and therefor
under the rule of King George III. It's only natural
that those people would want to keep their national
identity rather than throw it away in favor of the
unknown, especally when they like the way their life is
going.

But what about those horrible taxes? The taxes imposed
by the British government on the colonists were
certainly not enough to break anyone. The people were
outraged simply because they hadn't had to pay taxes
before then. The tougher taxes (which were nothing
compared to what they had to pay AFTER the revolution)
were even repealed after the colonists complained.

The reason taxes were imposed in the first place made
them seem all the more fair to many. The taxes were
intended to pay for the protection of the colonists
from Indians and the French who objected to the
colonization of land they considered their's (we don't
need to get into issues of true ownership right now).

What about taxation without representaton? Each colony
had a governer who was a go between for the people and
the British parliment. The governer could go (or send
someone) to speak to parliment on the colonists behalf.
The British government felt that was ample
representation and many colonists agreed.

Basically, the colonists in favor of revolution wanted
to be treated like regular British subjects with
regards to parlimentary representation, while not
paying the taxes that other Britains did and while
enjoying the greater personal freedoms they had living
an ocean away from law makers. Of course there's more
to it than that but you'd have to take things on a more
individual basis. The Loyalists, on the other hand,
were often colonists who were born in Britain (or had
close family members who were born there) and
appreciated the opportunities for land and jobs here
while still feeling close ties to the mother country.
Loyalists simply felt that there was no need for a
change in leadership and, in fact, early on in the
revolution many "rebels" were in favor of retaining
ties with Britain while gaining a larger degree of home
rule.

Emotions at the time were very strong on the subject of
independance to the point where many Loyalists had
their homes taken or destroyed (and sometimes they were
even killed) by angry mobs. This is what forced many
loyalists out of their complacency and into the army to
fight against the rebel colonists.

Loyalists are often represented today as being traitors
to their own people who tried to sell them out to a
tyrant king. That just wasn't the case. The Loyalists
were simply loyal to their government and didn't feel
one third of the population should be able to decide
for the rest simply because they were more vocal or
more angry. But of course, the winning side writes the
history.